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"The Puritans' Farewell to England 

Being 

The Humble Request 

of the Governor and Company of 

the Massachusetts -Bay in New 

England about to depart upon 

The Great Emigration 
April 7, 1630 



Reprinted in facsimile for the Members and Friends of 
the New England Society in the City of New 
York in honour of the two hundred and ninety- 
second anniversary of Forefathers Day 




New-Tor k : Printed for The Society, mdccccxii 



Copyright December 1912 

BY THE 

New England Society in the City of New York 



Providence Rhode Island 
Standard Printing Company 



©CI.A332002 




HE successful planting of New 
England was assured by The 
Great Emigration of 1630. 
For a hundred years, English 
farmers and country landhold- 
ers had been watching with keenest interest 
a bitter struggle between some of their 
neighbours who would not go to the parish 
church and others in places of official power 
who believed just as conscientiously that those 
who did not go to church could not be law- 
abiding citizens. It was a difference of 
opinion for the sake of which several men 
gladly rode to the scaffold, while others, 
both men and women, died in the filthy 
English jails. Scores who were put in 
prison, because they would not do things 
which they thought were contrary to the 
Word of God, suffered grievously in physical 
health, but they developed a sort of moral 
character which has had a far-reaching in- 
fluence wherever English folk have lived. 
The number of those who participated 
in this struggle was not large, compared 
with those who went about their daily af- 
fairs, wondering what might be the mean- 
ing of all the turmoil over matters of religious 
practice. In time, one thing came to be 



plain to a large body of Englishmen ; that 
the conditions of life about them were not 
good for people who desired to bring up 
their families to fear God and obey the Law. 
It was a very momentous decision to which 
this belief led, when more than a thousand 
of these home -loving English men and 
women went on board the vessels of the 
Massachusetts - Bay Company bound for 
America. 

There were many Trading Companies 
organized in London during the early years 
of the Seventeenth Century, for ventures 
over-seas in the Levant, or to Muscovy, 
Africa, the Indies, or America. Some of 
them made money for the adventurers, and 
more of them — as in earlier and later days 
— collected goodly sums for the initial ex- 
penses from those who hoped to make their 
fortunes. Most of the Companies were 
organized by small groups closely allied by 
business or social interests. One of these 
was ** The Governor and Company of the 
Massachusetts-Bay in New-England," which 
secured a grant of land and a charter from 
King Charles the First on March 4, 1629. 
A hundred men were soon on their way to 
erect the beginnings of a colony where 



fishermen could traffic and the natives barter 
for furs. A year later, these men had done 
nothing of any value toward providing for 
their own maintenance, while the accounts 
of the Company in London were in such a 
state that the share holders were forced to 
agree to a reorganization whereby they sur- 
rendered two-thirds of the amount they had 
paid, and put what was left into the control 
of a special committee, which agreed to ad- 
minister the joint account and make a settle- 
ment at the end of seven years. 

The men who organized this Company 
and carried on its business doubtless hoped 
that it might be a profitable commercial 
venture. It is equally probable that some 
of them had in mind from the beginning of 
the enterprise the possibility of establishing 
a convenient refuge to which they could 
retire without sacrifice of their English 
birthright, in the event of a fresh outbreak 
of religious persecution in Great Britain. 
The subscribers unquestionably expected a 
return from their investment, but it is more 
than likely that most of them regretted 
their losses less when they realized that they 
had helped to prepare the way for The 
Great Emigration. 



The Governor of the Massachusetts -Bay 
Company, the prosperous London merchant 
and ship-owner, Matthew Cradock, proposed 
in July, 1629, that the Company choose a 
new list of officers, of men who were go- 
ing to reside in the colony. A reason for 
his suggestion became apparent a month 
later, when twelve gentlemen met at Cam- 
bridge, and after careful discourse signed a 
paper pledging each to transport himself to 
the New England settlement, on certain 
conditions, of which the most important 
was that they were to take with them the 
actual government of the colony. 

These twelve were all men of property 
and of wide acquaintance. Two, John 
Humphrey and Isaac Johnson, were sons- 
in-law of the Earl of Lincoln, who was in- 
debted to a third, his steward, Thomas 
Dudley, for the management which yeilded 
an adequate income from estates that had 
previously been heavily encumbered. Sir 
Richard Saltonstall owned land in the West 
Riding, and had been a large subscriber to 
the Company's operations. William Vassall 
was a London merchant who was just be- 
ginning to add to his wealth by his Ameri- 
can investments. William Colburn, Increase 



Nowell and William Pynchon are better 
known for the parts they played in New 
England affairs. John Winthrop, the owner 
of an estate at Groton in Suffolk, had had a 
law office in London, and was the man to 
whom the others seem to have turned for the 
final decision whether they should go or stay 
to await the development of events in Eng- 
land. When, a few weeks later, the legal 
formalities had been completed and the new 
officers were elected, Winthrop became the 
first Governor of the Massachusetts -Bay 
Company resident in New England. 

Winthrop and his assistants in the man- 
agement of what has come to be known as 
**The Great Emigration'* were men who 
had much at stake, and they went earnestly 
about the task of assuring a prosperous fu- 
ture for themselves and for the thousand 
who accepted their leadership. There 
were many things to be looked after, but 
none more important than the maintenance 
of their good repute as men of sound judg- 
ment and wise counsel. There was every 
reason why they should be careful that this 
expedition should not be confounded with 
others that had left England for reasons of 
religious opinion. They, with other serious- 



minded English folk, had felt the deepest 
sympathy for those who had set them an 
example, but they had seen in these earlier 
expatriates much more zeal than wisdom, 
and perceived ample explanation for their 
failure in the affairs of this world. 

When they were ready to depart, the 
leaders gave out a letter which clearly reveals 
the state of mind in which they approached 
the separation from all that they were leaving. 
It is a very sincere and humble request for 
the prayers of all who worshipped the God 
of the English Nation, and for '*the removal 
of suspitions and misconstructions of their 
Intentions." 

This letter had in all probability been 
drawn up some time before, perhaps by the 
Reverend John White of Dorchester, and it 
is a safe assumption that all who were con- 
cerned in the direction of the enterprise had 
been consulted about its contents and its lan- 
guage. It was the formal leave-taking of 
those who were about to establish a new 
England in America, and it represents, bet- 
ter than any other single document, the 
spirit in which the settlement of the Massa- 
chusetts Colony was undertaken. Four 
of the signers had been at the Cambridge 



conference in the preceding August. Of 
the others, Charles Fines, of whom nothing 
else seems to be known, is supposed to have 
been of the family of Lord Say and Sele, 
which was connected by marriage with that 
of the Earl of Lincoln. Coddington was a 
merchant and a man of wealth from the 
English Boston. George Phillips was the 
only clergyman who appears as taking a 
leading part in the undertaking. 

This tract is not only a fundamental state- 
ment of the Puritan state of mind, but the 
original edition, which was printed in the 
spring of 1630, is one of the most prized of 
New England's bibliographical rarities. Of 
the five copies which are on record as hav- 
ing survived to the present day, only one is 
in private hands. Two are at Oxford, in the 
Bodleian and the All Souls College Libraries; 
one is in the Prince Collection at the Boston 
Public Library, and the one from which the 
present facsimile is made is in the John 
Carter Brown Library at Providence. 

G. P. W. 



THE 

H V M B L E 

R E Q V E S T OF 

HIS M A I E S T I E S 

loyall Subje<as, the Governour 
aQ;dthe Company late gone for 
Kb vv-Eng land- 
To the reft of their Brethren, in and of the 
Church of JEW e L AND, 

For the obtaining of their Prayers, 

and the removall of fu(pitions,and ntiit 
conftrudions of their Intentions. 






LONPON, 
Briiitedfi>tIoHNBEi.LAMXS* i^jo. 




THE HVMBLE 

REQVEST OF HIS 

Majefties loyall Subjedts, the 

Governour and the Company late 

goncforAVif £»g-A««Jj to the reft 

of their Brethren in and of the 

Chrch of Each Ani>. 

gevtre»dV AT H^KS <«>«fBRETHREN: 

E general! ru- 
mour of this fo- 
lemne Enterprifc, 
wheria our fclves 
with others, through the pro- 
vidence of the Almightie , are 
ingaged, as it may fpare us the 
A 5 labour 




labour of imparting our occa- 

fion unto you, fo it gives us 

the more incouragcmcnt to 

flrcngthen our k\\QS by the 

procurement of the pray ers<5c 

blefsings of the Lords faith' 

full Servants :For which end 

wee are bold to have recourfe 

unto you, as thofe whom ^od 

hath placed neareft his throne 

of Mercy; which as it affords 

you the more opportunit!e,ib 

it impofcth the greater bond 

upon you to intercede for his 

people in all their flraights,we 

befeech you therefore by the 

mercies ofthc Lord Ie svs to 

confider us as your Brethren, 

ftanding in very great need of 

your 



C?) 

your helpc, and earncilly im- 
ploring it. And howfoever 
your charitie may have met 
with fome occafion of dircou- 
ragement through the milre- 
port of our intentions, or 
through the difafFedtion^orin- 
difcretion, of fome of us,orra- 
ther, amongftus ; for wee are 
notofthofc that dreame of 
perfc<ilion in this world,' yet 
we dcfire you would be pica- 
fed to take notice of the prin- 
cipals, and body of our com- 
pany, as thofe who eilecme it 
our honour, to call the Church 
of England f from whence wee 
rife, our deare Mother, and 
cannot part from our native 

Countric, 



C4-) 
Councty, where fhe fpecialljr 
refideth, without much fadnes 
of heart, and many teares in 
oureyeSjCver acknowledging 
that fuch hope and part as wee 
have obtained in thecommon 
falvation, we have received in 
her borome,and fuckt it from 
her breafts : wee leave it not 
therfore, as loathing that milk 
wherewith we were nourifh-' 
ed there, but blefsing God for 
the parentage and education, 
as members of the fame body 
jfhall alwayes rejoyce in her 
good, and unfainedly grieve 
for any forrow that fliall ever 
betide her^and while we have 
breath, fyncerely defirc and 

in* 



C5) 

indcavour the continuance <5c 
abundance of her welfarc,with 
the inlargement of her bounds 
in the kingdome of C h r i s t 

I E S vs. 

Be pleafed therefore %c^e' 

rWFATHERSCJ?*BRETHRftN 

to heipe forward this worke 
now in hand ; which if it pro^ 
(per, you fliall bee the more 
glorious , howfoevcr your 
judgment is with the L o a d, 
and your reward with your 
God. ft is an ufuall and lau- 
dable exercife of your charity 
to commend to the prayers of 
your Congregations the ne.* 
cc-fsitics and ftraights of your 
private neighbours • Doc the 

B like 



CO 

like for a Church fprfnging 
Gutof yourowne bowels.VVe 
conceive much hope that this 
remembrance of us,if it be fre- 
quent and fervent, will bee a 
moft profperous gale in our 
failcs, and prouide fuch a paf- 
{age and welcome for us, fiom 
the God of the whole earth, 
as both we which fhall findeit, 
and your {cWes, with the reft 
of our fr-iends, who fhal heare 
of it, fhall be much inlarged to 
bring in fuch daily returnes of 
Thankf-givings,asthe fpedal- 
ties of his Providence and 
Goodnes mayjuftly challenge 
stall our hands. You are not 
%norant, that tiic Spirit of 

God 



C7) 

God ftirrcd up the Apoillc 
'Pauho make continuall men- 
tion ofthe Church of Thiiip^ 
pi (which was a Colonic irom 
^owo)let the fameSpirit,we 
befeech you, put you in mind, 
that are the Lords remem- 
brancers, to pray for us with- 
out ceafing (who areaweake 
Colony from your felves^ma- 
king continuall requeft for us 
to Gon in all your prayers. 

W hat we intreat of you that 
are the Miniftcrs of GoD,that 
we alfo crave at the hands of 
all the reft of our Brethren , 
that they would at no time for- 
get us in their private folicita-' 
tions at the throne of Grace. 

B z If 



C8) 
If any there be,wlio tlirongh 
want of cleare intelligence of 
our courfe, or tendernefle of 
affecflion towards us , cannot 
conceive fo well of our way as 
we could deiirc, we would in- 
treatfuch iiotto deCpik us,nor 
to defert us in their prayers & 
afFcdtions> but to confider ra- 
ther, tliat they are fo niuch the 
more bound to expreffe the 
bowels oftheircompafsion to^ 
wards us/emembring al waies 
that both Nature and Grace, 
doth ever binde us to relieve 
and refcue with ourutmoft & 
Ipeedieft power, fuch as are 
deare unto us, when wee con-- 
ecivecbem to be running un-- 

comfortable 



comfortaHe hazards. 

V^hacgoodnes you fliall 
extend to us in this or any o- 
therChriftiankindncfle, wee 
your Brethren in Christ 
I E s V s (hall labour to repay 
in what dutie wee arc or fliall 
be able to performe,promifing 
fo farre as God Oiall enable us 
to give him no reft on your be- 
Ralfes, wifhing our heads and 
hearts may be as fountaines of 
tcares for your everlafting 
welfare, when wee fhall be in 
our poore Cottages in tht wil- 
derneffejOver-ihadowed with 
the fpirit of fupplication, 
through the manifold necefsi- 
ties and tribulations which 

may 



' II: 

CIO) _ 

may not altogether unexpe- '' 
<aedly, nor, we bope,unprofi- 
tably befall us. And fo com- 
mending you to the grace of 
God in C h r i s t, wee lliali 
cvcrrefl 

Your affUrcd Friends 

From Yarmtuth and Brethren, 

aboord the ^y^f/?* 

h'Wmhrn^t Gov. i^ckSahonfii^, 
(hurkf Fines, J/aac hhnfm, 

tkoiDudlef. 
Gmj^e fhiUpfs. WiMem Ceidkgtm 
&•€» ire 



